Watching Them Die
by iphis15
Summary: Hannah/Val, oneshot. M for Language, Insinuation, homoerotism and some mentioned heteroerotism. AU.


Seeing you again is something of a shock, and yet I am quickly recovered, and my first thought of any quantifiable coherence is that I am never going even to consider dying for you. It is one thing, of course, to say that you love any one individual enough to want to do anything to protect them, but quite another to say that you cannot live without them. In my time in the world of magic, I have met many who have lost those that they loved, and they have all seemed to survive.

Of course, the fact that I was able to meet them at all is quite a sampling bias in itself, but it remains that this many people, people who lived full lives and loved wholeheartedly, unreservedly, people who fell for mortals, have remained, have stayed in their undying guises, and so it is that, with steady eyes, I am staring at your face and I am wondering where the years have slipped away to.

"Hannah?" I ask, letting my voice lilt up. "Hannah Foley?"

I am swept away in recollection to our childhood years. I remember how we were fast friends in primary school, how we were in all the same classes and how we were always talking. I remember how we drifted apart naturally when we entered secondary school, because you were driven and clever while I was happy to doze off and put in the bare minimum of effort because I knew that I could manage without constant study. I remember how much you hated me, or the person you thought I was, when I started going off on adventures, leaving the Reflection to study in school and refuse social engagement.

I remember your expression after the Gary Price incident, and that is a trip. I haven't thought about him in years, never felt enough for him to care at all. I remember the traces of jealousy you showed, how, after that, we spoke even less than we did before. I remember your venom, your passion, your hate, and I remember how I congratulated you on getting a scholarship to a prestigious university overseas. I remember your triumph and your disdain for me, because as far as you knew, you had Won, and I was nothing. That never bothered me, because shortly after that, I inherited a fortune, and shortly after _that, _I killed the best friend I ever had apart from Skulduggery. I still see Tanith's anguish when I close my eyes.

After that, my life spiraled, fell apart. I destroyed myself, or at least I tried my best to, but I kept bouncing back, kept healing. No matter how hard I tried, I never managed to become an addict to anything, be it sex or drugs or violence. I went through a stint where I would consume any substance that was meant to drive you crazy, where I tried to kill myself by any means possible, where I fucked everything that looked vaguely like it had a pulse. The highs were good, but they were never worth it when I crashed, and I never had any desire to go back to them. I forced myself to, though, because no matter how much I hated them, they were better than facing the shards of my life.

Those days are distant now, though, and I have returned to sanity, in a way. I am still involved in the world of the surreal, of the magical, but I'm starting to reintegrate with mortal society, and I am determined that I am going to recover some kind of normality, and so it is that I am here with you today.

You look old, Hannah. Your hair is streaked with grey, and your skin is wrinkled, and it scares me a little, because you look like you have reached the point where you don't even care about your appearance, about seeming young, anymore, and you were vain when I knew you, Hannah. You were so, so vain.

"Is this some kind of cruel joke?" you ask, frowning. "Don't you know that my mother is long dead?"

My heart sinks at the words. I have just remembered the year.

I thought that I could live without you, Hannah, and I can. What I want to escape, what makes me want to die, what I now realize is hanging over my head and the heads of all those sorcerers that are my company, is the passage of time. I would do anything to get away from that.

It is true. Falling in love with a mortal is the greatest insanity possible.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Kind of a random idea, born solely out of a great love for the pairing.**

**~Mademise Morte, January 16, 2012.**


End file.
